Category: Marketing Automation

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Contrary to their name, small businesses provide big dividends to the U.S. economy. Not only do they generate 44 percent of economic activity, but they also create over 60 percent of net new jobs and inspire American innovation. And while the industry is mostly dominated by men, women are increasingly making gains as small business owners. An American Express Report found that in 2019 women entrepreneurs owned 42 percent of small businesses in the US, employing over 9 million people and generating nearly two trillion in revenue. Another promising statistic? Minority-owned companies account for 50 percent of these businesses. And while we wish we could highlight all the amazing women-owned companies out there, we’re excited to spotlight these six brands this Women’s History Month which — along with creating great products — are also pushing for positive social change.Saie makes sustainable makeup View this post on Instagram A post shared by Saie (@saiebeauty) Founded in 2019 by Laney Crowell, Saie markets itself as a clean, minimalist makeup brand with products that provide their signature “Saie glow.” Over three years, the company has released 13 items, their most popular being “Slip Tint” — a skin tint that provides light and glowy coverage.But more than just a beauty brand, Saie’s key messaging has always revolved around their various sustainable practices. Saie uses clean and mostly vegan ingredients and Crowell has partnered with The Coral Restoration Foundation to address climate change. One percent of every Saie purchase will go to the foundation, which works to return nearly 50,000 threatened corals back to Florida’s coral reef. The brand has also stated that a major company goal is to one day be completely plastic-free.Aside from its various climate-driven initiatives, the makeup brand is also big on diversity and inclusion, specifically seen in their marketing approach. Saie’s Instagram grid is filled with women — and men — of all skin tones modeling their makeup products, which is refreshing considering brands have been criticized in the past for their limited shade range, specifically when it comes to darker colored foundations. The company also includes older women with mature, unfiltered skin in their ads and social posts, a rarity in the makeup world. They even went viral for featuring Crowell’s 99 year old grandma on their social media.And, it’s clear that whatever Saie is selling is working — they have grown remarkably fast in a short time. The company now includes close to 30 employees and, in 2022, Saie reached a major milestone by launching their entire collection in Sephora — gaining a ton of new exposure. For those following the brand from the beginning, Saie’s growth probably isn’t surprising. Back in 2020, Crowell spoke to Glossy revealing her company, only eight months old at the time, had beat out its own sales expectations by more than 200 percent.While Saie’s dewy makeup looks are what reel customers in, the brand’s dedication to diversity and its commitment to protecting the Earth are the stars of the show.Tàche’s eco-friendly nut milk View this post on Instagram A post shared by TÁCHE™ (@tachepistachiomilk) Nowadays, consumers are inundated with a variety of dairy-free milk alternatives. From soy to coconut to almond to oat, there seem to be never-ending options. But a newcomer is disrupting the milk industry once again — pistachio milk. Roxana Saidi had the idea to launch her milk company Tàche one day in 2015 while vacationing in Paris with her family. Pistachios, known to be slightly sweet, are close to Saidi’s heart as they were a staple in her Iranian household growing up.And while Tàche touts the drink’s taste — the business claims the milk is so good it can be drunk alone — the brand is also big on sustainability and prides itself on being environmentally friendly. Specifically, pistachios are more earth-friendly than almonds as they consume significantly less water, utilizing only 25 gallons of water to grow an ounce versus the 97 gallons needed for almonds.A women-founded and led company, Tàche has also pledged to give back to young girls through their partnership with The Lower East Side Girls Club NY. On their website, they state their mission is, “to foster girls’ education and provide them with the mentorship, tools, and support they need to become healthy and successful women.”The brand also spotlights Saidi’s Iranian heritage through its social media presence, like this Instagram post about Nowruz — the Persian New Year. Their first-ever company sale is currently taking place in honor of the holiday as well — customers can use the code “Persian New Year” to receive twenty percent off.Some may be drawn to Tàche purely for the taste, but others will surely appreciate the brand’s social impact, making their pistachio milk a beverage you can feel good about drinking.Bamby Collective creates a safe space View this post on Instagram A post shared by bamby collective (@bambycollective) London-based influencer Ambar Driscoll recently launched her brand — Bamby Collective — with the mission to empower young women everywhere. Driscoll has stated the purpose of the organization is to create a safe space for all women to discuss topics like mental health and body perception.For fans of the influencer, this move seems natural as the Bengali/English YouTuber has shared her struggles in the past, including opening up about her own body image issues on Instagram. A key component within the collective is fostering a connection between the members, allowing young women to feel comfortable enough to speak about sensitive topics. There are several ways members can find community within Bamby Collective: Through a private Facebook group where users can reach out to one another in confidence, at virtual events that take place every Monday including movie nights, and during its monthly book club via zoom. And, members are invited to in-person meetups throughout London as well. These events are promoted actively on social media and through a bi-weekly newsletter followers can subscribe to.In line with Bamby Collective’s mission, Driscoll recently introduced her first product: positive affirmation jewelry. The bracelets include the phrases “I am strong,” and “I am enough,” in both gold and silver options. The launch dropped in late 2021 and Driscoll took to her Instagram to explain her motive behind the products. “What you think often becomes your world, and repeating things that uplift and comfort me make such a difference … I made these bracelets for myself, but also for you, in the hope that they serve as a helpful reminder when you need it,” she said. A woman of color herself, Driscoll has chosen to donate five percent of the proceeds from the collection to support Imkaan, a UK organization that fights violence against black and minority ethnic women and girls.Bamby Collective’s goal to create authentic relationships amongst peers, all while challenging harmful societal norms, seems to be working. The group’s events usually sell out within hours, proving the brand’s doing something right.So Good So You’s innovative approach to plastic View this post on Instagram A post shared by So Good So You (@sogoodsoyou) Founded in 2014 by Rita Katona and her husband, So Good So You sells probiotic shots meant to make people feel their healthiest. The company, which offers everything from sleep shots to energy shots to beauty shots, revolves around the idea, “people and planet first.” So, it’s no surprise their juices are created with quality in mind as the brand uses a “high pressure processing method” that preserves the enzymes and nutrients.But while the business packs a ton of good-for-you ingredients inside their wellness drinks, they’ve also put the same thoughtfulness in crafting the outside. All probiotic shots are made with BTRBTL (pronounced: better bottle) — a new type of biodegradable plastic. If BTRBTL were to somehow get into a landfill, the plastic would break down into water, soil, and carbon-based gasses, according to a So Good So You press release. Producing something that had positive implications for the environment was important to Katona. “Our goal continues to be creating products that are delicious, nutrient-dense, and beneficial to the world as a whole,” Katona said during the bottle’s launch.The organization is also owned by mostly female directors, has a senior leadership team of 50 percent women, and employs a majority of women with 46 percent of their staff also identifying as BIPOC. Their commitment to empowering women leaders led them to officially be certified as a women-owned business by the Women’s Business Enterprise of National Council in 2021.So much more than just a trendy wellness brand, So Good So You has an admirable and clear mission: to become a vehicle for large social change, all while helping individuals feel their best along the way.Eizzy Baby’s commitment to give back View this post on Instagram A post shared by Eizzy Baby | Baby Products ™️ (@eizzybaby) In 2020, Assie Khoussa created Eizzy Baby with the vision to simplify the parenting process by making accessible and non-toxic baby products. The company’s homepage lays out the brand’s four core values: carefully designed, sustainably developed, on your side, and giving back. Each product is crafted with safe and eco-friendly materials – mostly food-grade silicone. A major goal for Eizzy Baby was to also produce products that would actually enhance every parent’s life. Khoussa details how the functionality of two of the brand’s items in particular — the Snack Cup and Silicon Bibs — made it possible for her to spend more quality time with her son and less time cleaning up after him.Khoussa’s vision goes beyond helping parents, however. Through a partnership with Angel House International, an organization providing resources for young women living in Uganda, Khoussa has made a commitment to use her small business for social change. The Eizzy Baby website states, “we want women across the globe to live in their communities without fear or violence. Through education there is the creation of opportunity for young women to break down barriers and become an integral part of their thriving community.” All proceeds from the company’s Beads of Hope are donated to Angel House.That Eizzy Baby provides inexpensive and safe products for babies is already a huge win, but the company’s deeper mission to amplify the voices of young girls in Uganda is what really makes them stand out for all the right reasons.Alqo Wasi supports local communities View this post on Instagram A post shared by Alqo Wasi Dogwear (@alqo_wasi) The idea for Alqo Wasi — a clothing brand for dogs — came to native Peruvian Patricia Queirolo when she was traveling through the Andes with her family in 2005 and noticed Alpacas roaming the land. Quierolo, a dog enthusiast herself, immediately envisioned crafting one-of-a-kind premium canine sweaters with Alpaca fiber and organic Pima cotton. Now, years later, the brand continues to sell their signature sweaters, while also adding toys and other accessories to their product line. But for Queirolo, the business was always about more than just producing quality dog items. Rather, her focus was to help her community.Alqo Wasi has deep-seated roots in Peruvian culture — the brand name even translates to “dog home” in Quechuan, an indigenous language found in Peru. But perhaps the clearest link between the business and the culture is that Queirolo works directly with local artisans who use traditional weaving techniques to craft each sweater. These handmade garments are made via ancient methods which preserve the historical significance of each piece as Alpaca fiber has long been a staple within the Incan community for centuries.Alqo Wasi prides itself on fostering these close relationships with the local Peruvian women. In an interview with Style Tail, Queirolo spoke of the impact her business had on the neighboring areas. “Creating good jobs in different regions of Peru and being environmentally responsible with natural fibers … helps reduce poverty and generates sustainable development for a third world country such as ours,” she said.By shopping at Alqo Wasi, not only can you snag an adorable sweater for your furry friend, but you’re also supporting women artisans making this brand a no-brainer for conscientious shoppers.Ethical and SuccessfulThese six women-owned brands stand out for their innovative products, while also using their platforms to speak up about important social causes. By doing so, each of these small businesses offers customers an insight into their values as a company, and also as human beings. And these women have all seemingly cracked the code for being successful entrepreneurs without compromising their morals, proving it’s possible to run a thriving business and still focus on the greater good.Who would you add to this list? Let us know on Twitter!

Web design has come a long way since 1991, when the first ever website was published. Exclusively text-based, this site marked the beginning of what would become a digital revolution.
And while recollections of “under construction” GIFs and blinding background colors make me thankful for just how far the web has come, there are some historical web design choices that actually demand a nod of respect.
Websites like this one haven’t been lost to time, either. If you want to see what a website looked like at any period since its launch, enter its domain name into the Wayback Machine and choose a date. In this post, let’s take a look at how web design has evolved, from text-only interfaces up through the sleek, modern designs we see today.

Early 1990s: Antiquity
The early 90s marks the start of our website design timeline. At this point, there was no such thing as a high-speed internet connection. It was dial-up modems, or it was nothing. Therefore, websites needed to be built for less-than-stellar connection speeds. They mostly looked like walls of text — what we now take for granted as “design layout” did not exist.

While later versions of HTML allowed for more complex designs, they were still very basic compared to today, consisting mainly of tags for headers, paragraphs, and links. Visual elements and styling like typography, imagery, and navigation were things of the not-too distant future.
Takeaways for Today’s Websites:
While the function of these early sites was purely informational, we can see some design elements that apply today. These old web pages were very lightweight and optimized for a slow internet connection we all still experience from time to time. These design considerations took the user experience into account, something today’s websites don’t always do, even with faster speeds.
Yes, today’s internet can handle media-rich websites … but it still has some limits. Large media files, heavy graphic design, and excessive animations can all contribute to higher bounce rates when load speeds aren’t as fast as we want. Keep your user in mind when considering complicated design, and remember to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Superhero).
Mid-1990s: The Middle Ages
The middle ages of web design were plagued by on-site page builders and spacer GIFs. (Better than an actual plague though, right?) By the mid-90s, web design had evolved both in terms of structure and appearance. Designers began using table-based layouts to organize content, allowing for greater flexibility and creativity. Sites were still quite text heavy, but text could now be divided into columns, rows, and other navigational elements for better readability.
Graphical design elements also quickly grew in popularity. Page hit counters, animated text, and dancing GIFs are just a few of the graphical elements that mark this period in web design.

Takeaways for Today’s Websites:
Today, there are plenty of reasons why table-based design is not the best choice for your website — the extensive markup, slow load times, and visual inconsistency are just a few of the pitfalls.
Regardless, this development was key in the evolution of web design: It was the first move toward non-linear page structure. Different elements could now be positioned in different sections of a web page, and designers had to consider the best way to present information to the user.
Page structure remains critical when thinking about navigation and content. It largely determines how the user experiences and interacts with your site. While these considerations might not have been at the forefront during the middle ages of web design, they are certainly at the forefront today.
Late 1990s: The Renaissance
Renaissance. Rebirth. Web design has had its fair share of reimaginings, but one of the first occurred with the introduction of Flash. Introduced in 1996, Flash opened up a world of design possibilities that weren’t possible with basic HTML. It was the marriage of virtual graphics and interaction.
While many of the same design elements from previous periods were still present, they were enhanced with animations, tiled background images, neon colors, 3D buttons, splash pages, and other multimedia.
Flash marked the beginning of visitor-focused design — structure and navigation became important considerations and designers began to hone in on appearance and usability over pure content.

Takeaways for Today’s Websites:
Flash was a game-changer, but it wouldn’t stick around forever. Flash is hardly ever used today and is deemed one of the biggest SEO sins of all time. Today, it’s the norm to opt for alternative methods such as CSS and JavaScript animations to get similar effects, or to embed videos from video hosting sites.
Early 2000s: The Enlightenment
The early 2000s were a period when usability and flexibility really came to the forefront of web design.
Leading the charge was CSS, a coding language that allowed developers to store visual rules in files separate from HTML, effectively separating content and style. This gave greater creative freedom to both web designers and content developers — content could now be developed exclusively from design, and vice versa. CSS made websites easier to maintain (less code and complexity), more flexible (div tags are independent of one another), and quicker to load (smaller files).
Better understanding of color psychology also led to increased use of whitespace and the decrease of garish colors, like neons. Links started being added to icons rather than just text, resolution and pixelation became more important concerns, and strategic placement of content also gained traction.

Takeaways for Today’s Websites:
People typically scan websites looking for the information they need, so any site that makes this job easier gets a giant check-mark. Savvy web designers know that most users don’t read everything on a website, and understand how readers take in information.
Therefore, intuitively placed information, visually accentuated links, and straightforward navigation are just a few best practices today’s websites should adhere to. Always design with usability in mind!
Mid- to Late-2000s: The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution of web design begins with the birth of Web 2.0. It’s at this time that things really began to move toward the modern web. The growth of multimedia applications, the rise of interactive content, and the advent of social media are a few definitive features of this period.
Moreover, these changes largely dictated the way web design was … well, done. Aesthetic changes included better color distribution, increased use of icons, and greater attention to typography.
Most importantly, however, design became about content, and content became about search engine optimization. With the user now firmly at the center of design, selling products (at least explicitly) became the secondary function of websites — now it was all about getting found.

Takeaways for Today’s Websites:
As mentioned, the evolution of Web 2.0 saw the growth of SEO as a consideration. While these techniques have been adapted over the years, thinking about your website in terms of SEO is still a top priority for most thriving business websites.
SEO demands content, and content largely became the focus of web design during this era. Keyword optimization, inbound and outbound linking, authoring, tagging, and syndication technology such as RSS became natural design elements. While link spamming and keyword jamming soon exploited these techniques, these methods are no longer effective and (I hope) have largely fizzled out.
2010 to Now: The Modern Era
Today, over two decades after the publication of the first website, web design has firmly established itself as an irreplaceable component of every good marketing strategy. Recent research found that 50% of today’s consumers think website design is crucial to a business’s brand.
In terms of modern aesthetics, we have seen the proliferation of minimalism: sparse content, flat graphics (so long, 3D buttons!), simpler color palettes, and big and bold visuals. In addition, UX has taken center stage, giving way to such design features as infinite scrolling and single-page design.
You may have noticed that our website has embraced all these features with its latest design:

One more key step in the evolution of web design is the mobile web. Since the launch of the iPhone in 2007, there has been a re-evaluation of the way websites are structured to accommodate for the growing number of mobile web users. This includes several mobile frameworks that take a “mobile-first” approach, and an even greater focus on mobile speed optimization, since phones usually lack the processing speed or connection strength of your typical desktop.
This digital revolution has also given rise to responsive design, in which page elements automatically adjust to the width of the browsing window, allowing websites to look good on any device or screen. Today, responsive design is necessary to ensure a pleasing mobile user experience, given over half of global website traffic comes from mobile devices.
Where will websites go next?
If there’s one factor that has informed every single one of these developments, it’s content. Every design element here has been adapted in such a way to bring the most relevant content to the user in the most efficient and effective way. Notions of accessibility, adaptability, and usability truly define this era of web design.
Though there’s much more we can do with web design today, it’s fun to take a look back at where we came from. Looking at how web design has progressed thus far, it’s exciting to think about where it will be in the next 20 years.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

If you’re anything like me, you’re consistently working out of at least 20 browser tabs, four journals, a yellow legal pad or two, and a myriad of Post-it notes stuck around your computer monitor.
To the average overseer, it’s nothing short of chaos. To the blogger, it’s evidence of a (desperate) need for an editorial calendar.

My muddled system transforms dramatically when I work with a team. I realize the need for organization and structure, and this could not be more necessary than managing a blog. Without a mutually agreed-upon system for planning, writing, and scheduling content every week, you can find yourself in a pile of missed deadlines, unedited blog posts, and a fair amount of team tension.

There’s no such thing as a perfect editorial calendar — it all depends on the needs of your team. Nonetheless, there are several questions you should ask yourself to determine what your editorial calendar should look like. These include:

How frequently are you publishing content? Do you have stuff going live every day? Once a week? Perhaps multiple times a day? Finding out how often you publish can tell you how best to visualize your editorial calendar regularly.
Do you create more than one type of content? If you upload as many videos to YouTube as you publish articles to your company blog, your editorial calendar will need to distinguish between the two.
How many people will use this editorial calendar? The best editorial calendars allow multiple people to brainstorm, collaborate, and provide feedback on assignments in real-time — directly on the calendar.
What are the various stages content goes through before it’s published? How complex is your content pipeline? Is there a substantial review or approval process that each piece of content goes through? Make sure your calendar can distinguish between two similar assignments that are in different stages of creation.
What format will you use to organize this calendar? You’ll want to choose the system that best aligns with your goals and your team’s workflows. The next section discusses the most common formats.

Let’s take these points and put them into practice to create your perfect editorial calendar.
How to Create an Editorial Calendar
A successful editorial calendar is a living project that your business will change as your grow and scale your social media strategy. To start the process of creating your own, we have some resources to simplify the process.

With all the different types of calendars you can create, we’ll discuss the different types you can choose, and how to plan the rollout of your amazing content with them.
1. Choose a format for organizing your editorial calendar.
There’s no such thing as a perfect editorial calendar, but some formats will be better than others at helping you solve your team’s goals. Once you choose a format, you’ll also want to decide on how you will implement it — picking a tool or platform that offers the features or interface your company needs most.
Here are some of the different ways to format your editorial calendar:
Traditional Calendar or Calendar App

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Whether you’re tracking deadlines on a big paper calendar on your desk or through an app like Google Calendar, this is one of the most straightforward ways to know what’s going out and when.
The disadvantage, though, is that there’s more to project and content management than publishing dates, and a calendar may not always be effective enough on its own.
Spreadsheet

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Spreadsheets have always been a favorite for content management. There’s something so satisfying in seeing all your necessary data points aggregated in one place and organized neatly into rows and columns. With Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, spreadsheets are easily accessible and don’t have a high learning curve.
One advantage of using spreadsheets is that they can be easily paired with calendar apps and content management tools. By importing a .csv file, you can load the information into multiple places as needed for the tasks at hand (see the Google Sheets and Hootsuite Planner combination in the next section for inspiration).
Kanban Board or Other Project Management Tool

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Kanban is a visual system for project management that involves moving cards through different stages of a project. It’s popular in editorial management because it can be easily used to represent an editorial workflow no matter what your quality assurance process is or how many hands touch a piece before it’s published.
This means that a Kanban board can easily accommodate your content calendar if you require more planning and management to push things live. Popular options for this type of system include Trello, Airtable, and Meistertask.
Content Calendar (and Management) Apps

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Taking the calendar concept a little further, there are apps and software platforms that have been designed specifically for content management. They include both the calendar and the project management aspects that are required to get the job done along with other helpful features for high-volume content marketing teams. Examples of these platforms include CoSchedule, Contently, and Loomly.
2. Designate your main marketing channels.
Editorial calendars are highly visual tools, and differentiating your calendar using color coordination for the different channels you post on can eliminate confusion amongst your marketing team members.
Make your editorial calendar easier to interpret by dividing the types of posts or subject matter using different visual cues to ensure you schedule the right content at the right time.
3. Plan your posts consistently.
Organizing your editorial calendar to be posted on the same weekly schedule can drive your pages to have more exposure via social media algorithms and potentially raise your engagement as a result.
You see, when you post on a frequent basis and use a social media platform often, you’re in turn keeping your followers coming back to the platform as well. Platforms reward profiles that drive this engagement with more visibility, and after all, these platforms are after capturing and maintaining people’s attention.
Social media channels favor profiles that use their website often, and when you add a patterned or consistent posting cycle to it, you’re using the platform in an optimized manner.
4. Study your competition’s posting frequency.
Look to other businesses posting in the same industry or niche as yours, study which are successful in capturing that attention and how they got to that level of success.
By no means should you copy others’ content subject matter or the exact dates or times they post, but instead pull inspiration and make your own editorial calendar that could possibly garner attention on the days or times competitors aren’t posting.
5. Audit and adapt your editorial calendar as necessary.
It’s all a matter of trial and error when making your calendar. If you begin with low engagement the first couple of months, you should run a company content audit and adapt your content calendar to better engage your followers.
Above all, creating an editorial calendar will make your marketing team work in a more streamlined, organized manner. With that being said, let’s look at some pre-existing calendars that’re optimally organized.
Editorial Calendar Examples
To help you implement an editorial calendar, we’ve also included real examples from a few of the most successful content teams out there. Check them out below and find out what makes their calendar so useful.
1. HubSpot Editorial Calendar [Template]
Platform: Excel

Free Download
The interactive HubSpot Editorial Calendar Template was built for writers and content strategists to outline their posting strategy. Included are prompts for the content’s title, meta description, URL, CTA, and more. This template is completely free and can be used on both Google Sheets and Excel.
2. Buffer’s Editorial Calendar
Platform: Trello

This is the actual editorial calendar of Buffer, a social media content scheduling platform. Naturally, the company’s content is supported by an editorial calendar that describes an assignment’s author, title, publish date, and where it is in the company’s editorial workflow (content can be in the “Ideas” stage, in the “Pipeline,” “In Progress,” or “Editing”).
Each rectangular tile shown above represents an individual piece of content — whether it’s a blog post, video, or even a podcast episode.
As you might be able to tell, Buffer’s editorial calendar is built on Trello, a common project management tool. And although you can use Trello more than one way, Buffer uses most of its available features so everyone has the information they need within a few clicks — regardless of what they do for the company and how the calendar affects their work.
“An editorial calendar should be a resource for your whole team, not just content creators,” says Ash Read, Buffer’s editorial director. “It should be something anyone can easily access to see what’s coming up and also suggest content ideas. Sometimes the best content suggestions will come from people outside of your marketing team.”

In the next screenshot, above, you can see what’s inside each rectangular tile. When you click on an assignment, Buffer logs feedback as the content is created and reviewed. Says Ash: “It’s not just a calendar, but a place to share feedback, editing notes, pitches, ideas, and more.”
3. Unbounce’s Editorial Calendar
Platform: Google Sheets
This is the editorial calendar of Unbounce, a creator of landing pages and related conversion tools for marketers, as well as a HubSpot integration partner. Unlike Buffer, this company uses Google Sheets to manage their entire content production, and the way they’ve customized the spreadsheet above would be pleasing to the eyes of any content creator.
In addition to organizing their projects by month, what you might notice from the screenshot above is that Unbounce also sorts their content by the campaign they’re serving — as per the first two columns on the left hand side. This allows the business to see what multiple assignments — listed vertically down the third column — have in common, and track content that extends beyond the Unbounce blog.
Shown below, the Unbounce blog has a separate editorial calendar in Google Sheets that allows the blog to work alongside the larger company initiatives. Nonetheless, using spreadsheets for both content workflows has proven to be the best choice for the company’s growing operation.

“We’re a small content team, so other platforms would likely overcomplicate things,” says Colin Loughran, editor in chief at Unbounce.
Ultimately, this editorial calendar keeps Colin’s team in sync. “While we try to lock dates a few weeks in advance,” he explains, “the reality is that sometimes we need to make changes very quickly. A product launch might move into a slot we’d planned for something else, for instance, or a guest contributor will be delayed in delivering a revised draft. When that’s the case, having a centralized resource that everyone can check is a necessary safety blanket.”
4. Digital Authority’s Content Calendar
Platform: CoSchedule
Digital Authority, a marketing agency that specializes in content and social media, distinguishes between its big-picture content goals vs. smaller content-related tasks.
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Digital Authority uses CoSchedule to plan out timelines for pieces such as blogs and social media posts. The advantage of this is the color categorization, calendar and task views, and the ability to create social posts across platforms from within one portal.
There are also features to keep the team actionable, on the same page, and agile with drag-and-drop features.
5. Hootsuite’s Content Calendar
Platform: Google Sheets and Hootsuite Planner
Hootsuite, another social media scheduling platform, has a ton of content to publish both daily and far out in advance. That makes their content calendar a major component of their production strategy.
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Due to the volume, the Hootsuite team creates content far in advance using Google Sheets to plan and organize across channels. Once the strategy is created and executed, posts that are ready to be published are represented on Hootsuite Planner.

Editorial Calendar Template
Ready to make your own editorial calendar? No matter which platform you ultimately want to work out of, a spreadsheet can help you take inventory of what content you have and how quickly it moves from start to finish. Try our free Blog Editorial Calendar Templates.

Using the templates linked above, you’ll be able to organize, categorize, and color code to your heart’s content. Use these templates to target the right readers, optimize posts with the best keywords, and pair each topic with a killer call-to-action.
In this download, we’ve included three different templates for you to choose from. Why three? We recognize that not all content teams are the same. While some feel most efficient with a centralized editorial calendar solution, others may need the gentle push of an upcoming deadline right on their calendar. Therefore, you’ll have access to all three templates in Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and Google Calendar.
Plan Out Your Editorial Calendar with Ease
With a little customization, your blog calendar will be running smoothly, leaving you time to be the content-writing, lead-generating machine you strive to be.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published May 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Take a second to think about one of your favorite brands. A logo, storefront, color, or memorable ad campaign will likely pop into your mind. That’s because a brand’s visual identity is a powerful tool for telling a company’s story, building customer affinity, and increasing revenue.
If done effectively, visual identity can communicate a particular feeling or message without words. But a poorly-designed identity can confuse customers with lackluster messaging and disjointed graphics. So it’s no surprise that consistent brands are 3.5x more likely to have strong brand visibility than inconsistent brands.

Visual identity plays an essential role in branding, so it’s important to understand what makes up an identity and how to create one. We’ll cover all of that and share examples of successful brands that have developed a strong visual identity.
What is a visual identity?
A visual identity is the visible representation of a brand, from the logo and colors to the website and design of physical stores. It encompasses everything you can see in connection to a company.
Visual identity can be made up of many elements:

Graphics
Animations, icons, buttons
Typography
Logo
Color palette
Imagery
Store design
Packaging
Uniforms
Flyers
Brochures
Billboards
Digital and print ads

Developing a strong visual identity comes with a number of benefits. It helps create an emotional connection with customers, which leads 57% of customers to increase spending. Consistent visuals unify a brand’s messaging so people instantly recognize the company across all channels.
They can build brand trust by informing potential buyers about products or services. And a well-designed visual identity can boost brand awareness and make people more likely to purchase, especially since 64% of people want brands to connect with them.
Although visual identity sounds similar to brand identity, its unique benefits and elements set it apart.
Visual Identity vs Brand Identity
If brand identity is the personality of your business, visual identity is the visible expression of that personality. Think of a person who’s outgoing and creative (brand identity) and is known for wearing eccentric outfits and jewelry (visual identity).
Brand identity gives customers the feelings they associate with your company, and it’s made up of everything that creates the brand as a whole. It includes your values, mission statement, tone and voice, style guides, brand persona, unique value props, visual assets, and more.
Visual identity is a part of brand identity, but its focus is on how a brand is visually represented. It requires a separate approach from brand identity, yet it needs to complement the brand. This is why designers and creatives are usually in charge of visual identity, whereas marketers and branding teams are in charge of brand identity.
5 Companies with Strong Visual Identity
When a brand takes the time to craft a strong visual identity, it becomes easier to attract customers and drive the business forward. As you look through the following examples, consider how every element works together to form a cohesive visual language.
Headspace
On a mission to improve the health and happiness of the world, Headspace takes a quirky approach to visual identity. The meditation app is full of charming characters, bright colors, and memorable moments that aim to establish its unique identity in the world of wellness. Even the animations add a sense of connection and humor while explaining mindfulness concepts.

Meow Wolf
The art collective Meow Wolf is out to inspire creativity through art, and their visual identity is chock full of imaginative graphics, installations, and images. The psychedelic color palette instantly draws you in, and the extraordinary characters hint that you’re in another world. It’s easy to get lost in a realm of fantasy and immersive art just by scrolling the brand’s Instagram.

Airbnb
From flexible dates to unique stays, Airbnb’s visual identity highlights the brand’s willingness to embrace adventure. Their pink logo, playful graphics, and incredible imagery encourage people to explore places beyond conventional options, which is exactly what you can do by booking or hosting a homestay through their platform.

Spotify
Listening is everything to Spotify, and it’s clear through the brand’s visual identity. A bold color palette and clever ad campaigns, like #SpotifyWrapped, showcase the company’s passionate and playful brand across the app, online platforms, and print ads.

Yeti
Visual identity is more than logos and ad campaigns — it’s the feeling people get when they see your brand. Yeti is a great example of how to make brand and visual identity work together to create a specific feeling for customers, which the brand does with Yeti Presents. These short films inspire adventure in a way that’s more authentic than other outdoor brands and fits the company’s laidback, active identity.

How to Create a Visual Identity
Creating a strong visual identity shows people who you are, why they should interact with you, and helps establish an emotional connection to your brand identity. Whether you’re creating a visual identity system for the first time or looking to revamp your identity, just follow these steps to come up with an eye-catching visual language.
1. Define your brand identity.
Your brand identity is the core of your company personality, and it informs your visual identity. If you don’t have all the aspects of your brand laid out, your visual identity can flounder from a lack of direction and cohesion. Before designing your visual identity, make sure to have the bare minimum brand requirements decided, such as values, voice and tone, persona, and mission statement.
2. Understand the principles of design.
When starting my own business, I decided to create my logo and website. But when getting feedback on my visual identity from a graphic design friend, it was clear I wasn’t trained in the principles of design. Visuals play a major part in how people perceive your brand, so it’s important to get them right. You can learn the six elements of design yourself, or hire a graphic designer to help bring your visual identity to life.
3. Create a story.
People remember stories more than facts, which is why visual identity must focus on telling a great story. You can draw people in with characters and conflict, or incorporate your values into your visuals. The Swiss paragliding company, Advance, uses storytelling to highlight the quality of its products and the adventures that are possible because of them. The key is to show, not tell.

Image Source
4. Stay consistent.
Consistency is simple when your company is small and you review every asset before it goes live. But the bigger the brand, the less likely it is to stay consistent. From ad campaigns and conference decks to social media posts or sales one-pagers, it’s easy to let visual style slip. But creating a brand style guide, and outlining the specific visual identity systems and styles, can help your team combine existing visuals with new elements as the company grows.
5. Keep the medium in mind.
Visuals look different on every channel — a printed logo can appear darker than on a screen. So it’s crucial to cater your visuals to the medium you’re using to promote your brand. A graphic designer or branding designer will understand how to adjust visual assets for each medium to ensure all elements, from colors and fonts to images and animations, appear consistent across channels.

Image Source
Once you outline your visual identity and create graphics, you’re ready to share your visual language with the world. With time and consistency, people will be able to recognize your brand at first glance.

91% of marketers are confident that their making marketing decisions will positively impact revenue. Are you one of them?
As marketers, we’re well-versed in the main goals of internet marketing: to generate leads and new business. Revenue generated from online marketing justifies why we include online channels in our marketing efforts.

How then, do marketers come up with a winning online marketing strategy that directly ties to their revenue goals?
If you’re unsure of the answer, we’ve got you covered. In this article, we’ve outlined the steps that you can take to plan successful revenue marketing campaigns.

Let’s explain revenue marketing a little bit more.

If you were to implement a revenue marketing plan, you would look at your revenue goals first instead of your business goals. For example, if the business has a goal to attract 10,000 new customers, but the revenue goal is to make $150,000 more than last quarter, a revenue campaign would strategize all the ways the team could generate $150,000 — ideally from 10,000 (or more) new customers.
Benefits of Revenue Marketing
Marketing efforts are typically broken down into four broad categories: Traditional marketing, lead generation, demand generation, and revenue marketing.
Many companies move through marketing efforts in this order. Traditional marketing comes first and includes a focus on building your brand — generating name and product recognition in the hope of driving sales later on.
Lead generation comes next. Here, marketing teams look to pinpoint high-value leads that are likely to take action and drive sales. Demand generation follows, and sees marketing and sales teams working in tandem to create multi-channel campaigns that bring interested B2C and B2B buyers to your site or sales platform.
Revenue marketing looks to scale up lead and demand generation processes by tying them to specific metrics and making them both reliable and repeatable. Effectively implemented, revenue marketing offers three key benefits.
Increased Customer Focus
Traditional marketing efforts are all about finding ways to boost demand by making products or services more appealing at scale. Revenue marketing flips the script to focus on what customers want.
What do customers want from the product? What would make them likely to buy more? Buy less? What non-product areas — such as speed of customer service response or the ability to easily navigate websites — have an impact on the likelihood of conversion? By focusing on the cultivation of long-term customer relationships, revenue marketing can help drive sustained sales.
Enhanced Team Alignment
Marketing and sales teams are often at odds. Where marketers look to positively raise brand profiles at large, sales teams are more concerned with the specifics of individual conversions. As a result, efforts from these two teams may work in opposition rather than tandem, in turn frustrating both outcomes.
Revenue marketing, meanwhile, helps put these teams on the same page with a singular focus: The customer. By getting everyone on board up-front — from sales and marketing team members to C-suite sponsors and even IT if needed — companies can align goals and outcomes across their organization.
Improved Goal-Setting
Speaking of goals, revenue marketing prioritizes — you guessed it — revenue, rather than leads, prospects, or potential demand. By tying success metrics to the generation of revenue from specific sources, it’s possible to create goals rooted in the reality of current sales volumes rather than predicated on predictions of potential customer action.

1. Customer Data Acquisition
First up? Data acquisition. Here’s why: The more businesses know about their customers, the better they’re able to create marketing and sales strategies capable of driving action. Effective acquisition starts with permission — make sure customers know what’s being collected, and why — and gets up to speed with data analysis tools capable of deriving patterns from real-time data sets.
2. Stakeholder Alignment
Given the scope of revenue marketing efforts, it’s also critical for companies to ensure stakeholder alignment. This means taking the time to sit down with relevant team members and create a strategy that gets everyone on board. Not only does this provide a roadmap moving forward, but sets a tone of collaboration from the outset.
3. Process Definition
Process comes next: What does the big picture revenue marketing campaign look like, and what specific processes will help achieve the goal? This often involves discussions around demand management, targeted marketing efforts, and the use of customer data to drive personalized campaigns.
4. Technology Implementation
From email newsletters to mobile apps and social media sites, technology is instrumental in effective revenue marketing. As a result, it’s worth looping in IT staff as soon as possible to identify services and software — such as in-depth big data programs and powerful CMS platforms — that can help companies reach their revenue marketing goals.
5. Results Management
Last but not least? Effective results management. This includes pinpointing the key metrics you’ll use to measure success — such as total number of sales over a specific period or revenue growth year-over-year — and how these metrics will inform revenue marketing efforts moving forward.
Developing an Effective Revenue Marketing Strategy
It’s not enough to know that you need a revenue marketing plan — you need a strategy to achieve this goal. Not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered with our 4-step process.

1. Set SMART revenue goals.
To reach your revenue goals, you have to make them! If you’re a little confused on how to start making them or unsure of how to set them so they’re effective for marketing campaigns, let’s talk about how you can set measurable goals.
Before you set out to conduct online marketing strategies, your goal should be clearly defined and understood by the team working on the campaign. The easiest way to do that is to make sure your goal(s) is SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based.
For a little refresher on SMART goals and how they pertain to setting revenue goals for marketing campaigns, let’s walk through an example.
Let’s say a marketing team for a company is generating $10,000/month in revenue through online and traditional marketing efforts, but wants to generate more revenue through beefing up digital campaigns. They have decided on a goal to double their revenue.
While doubling revenue is a fantastic goal, it doesn’t have any basis for how to get there. To make this goal SMART, the team can add some terms to make their path a little more clear.
So, instead of the marketing teams’ goal being “Double revenue,” it can be restructured to, “Through an online marketing campaign, the goal is to double revenue in six months by using channels chosen based on previous ROI data.”
This goal gives a time span, is specific, relevant to the task, and measurable. While doubling revenue is a high goal, SMART goals can change; they’re merely a guide to making sure your goals are reachable.
Begin by planning out your revenue goals. If you are still shaky on SMART goal making, HubSpot offers a free template you can download to guide you while writing them.
2. Audit your current website and marketing ROI.
Marketing analytics software can be used to measure the number of visits, leads, and generated sales you earn for each of your marketing channels. For example, HubSpot’s Marketing Hub offers the tools marketers need to measure the success of their digital marketing campaigns, such as website metrics.
When you want to determine the initial ROI of online marketing efforts, using analytics tools is extremely critical. These tools have customizable settings that you can configure, so the platforms only track the metrics you care about.
If you want to use your revenue goals to inspire your internet marketing plan, the metrics that will be useful may vary based on your business goals, but here are a few that are especially helpful: SEO metrics, ROI from pay-per-click (PPC), your blog’s conversion rates, and social media engagement.
Those metrics will tell you how your marketing efforts are ranking on Google, how many people are clicking on your ads or campaign offers, how helpful your content is to readers, and how your brand is perceived by its audience.
In general, if you intend to make money from a marketing channel, it’s important you continue to measure and iterate your strategy based on that channel’s core metrics. Once you know your analytics, you can use that data, paired with monthly revenue data, to estimate the conversion rate you aim to earn with your next campaign.
3. Conduct research to determine actionable steps.
If you’re unsure of how to determine actionable steps in your plan, it’s always helpful to do some research.
I know, I know: you might not have the time to devote to copious amounts of research. However, by seeking out some information, you’ll be able to uncover actionable steps that work for similar companies’ revenue marketing efforts.
For instance, we’ve talked about how leveraging data can help build your online marketing strategy. Before you start planning, if you’re unsure of where to begin, refresh your memory of must-haves when writing a marketing plan. This post is a good place to start.
You can also look into downloading a report from a company that used revenue marketing. For instance, HubSpot offers this study, which details how revenue marketing worked for a campaign, and provides highlights of the report for those strapped for time.
Additionally, you can look at a case study to get an understanding of how a revenue marketing plan looks from a bird’s eye view. This directory of case studies is organized based on industry, company size, and company goals, so you can easily find a case study that illustrates the plan you’re considering for your own business.
Don’t forget to look into how using SEO can help make smarter marketing decisions. If you are confident in your SEO efforts, look at keyword and competitive data to figure out how much time and money you should invest in pay-per-click to hit your goals.
Finally, research can help you determine if you’re following the best practices for lead generation and tracking. You can find new ideas for converting leads into customers using online marketing channels, such as blogging and email, as nurturing tools.
To gain an understanding of how your marketing efforts help one another, and how to structure a chronological plan, a little research is necessary.
4. Put it all together.
Once you’ve got an idea of your current return, have set reasonable revenue goals, and know a bit more about the channels and methods you want to use, it’s time to put it all together.
When you’re building your internet marketing campaign, keep in mind that every step in your plan should be based on revenue goals. If you’re going to use Facebook Ads as part of your campaign, for example, it should be understood by the team why that method will help you reach your revenue goal.
Spend some time ensuring the content you want to create for the campaign will resonate with its audience, as well. Blog posts need to be valuable to readers (Keyword research helps you figure out what readers are searching for) and social media content needs to engage followers, for example.
During your internet marketing planning process, outline how you’re going to measure success. Revenue is the obvious metric to measure, but what software will you be using? How are you going to interpret the revenue you earn?
Once you’ve worked through your marketing plan, you should have all the resources in place to write a marketing report or case study from your findings on your own. Who knows — your report could even turn into a valuable content offer for your next revenue-based campaign.
Realizing Revenue Goals
Revenue marketing combines sales and marketing efforts to create campaigns that go beyond lead and demand generation to link campaigns with reliable and repeatable ROI.
Best bet? Start with a clear strategy to help identify sales opportunities, pinpoint conversion-ready leads, and create metrics that effectively align campaign efforts with revenue outcomes.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 19, 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

In 2021, despite an ongoing global pandemic, we experienced several advancements in the field of digital marketing. Some of these have made our jobs easier, while others — like Apple’s iOs 14 update — meant that we had to get a bit more creative.  In this article, we’re going to take a look back at…
The post Digital Marketing in 2022: Lessons from 2021 appeared first on Benchmark Email.

Ideas for social content can strike at any time (does anyone else think of them right before going to sleep?) but they’re rarely fully formed or immediately ready to share. You might need to create a new video, flesh out some copy, or run your idea past another person. Plus, there are just about a hundred ways to save posts for later: spreadsheets, word documents, notes apps, post-it-notes, written on your hand — we’ve seen it all.When the content is polished up and ready to go, you would then copy it over to a social media management tool or directly to your social accounts. There are two problems here:You have to download and upload media from one place to another, which is annoying and time-consuming.There’s room for error when you’re copying things over. Did it copy over correctly? Did you schedule it for the correct time?At Buffer we’re on a mission to make this process easier for you, starting with some major improvements to our drafts feature.The new drafts experience in BufferWith the new-and-improved drafts experience, you’ll be able to:Plan and save content ideas for later across your devices. You can create drafts on mobile or desktop, and they’ll be synced together.Add drafts to specific time slots in your calendar, so that you can plan out your social schedule ahead of time.Save and schedule drafts with any Buffer plan, including our free plan.Our goal is to help you jot down your ideas, revisit them, refine them, and schedule them — all in one place — in your own time. Read on for more details about how it works!Create drafts from anywhereIt doesn’t matter whether you’re using the Buffer mobile app, the calendar view on desktop, or the traditional queue view – if you’re composing a post, you’ll have the option to save it as a draft or add it to your queue.Create drafts from anywhereSave or schedule draftsSometimes you may want to add a draft for a specific time in your calendar, and other times you may want to save a draft to a backlog of ideas instead. Scheduling drafts works the same way as scheduling posts. You can click on a slot in your queue or calendar to create a draft for that time, or you can create a custom time for your draft. Drafts with scheduled times act as “placeholders”; they will never be published until they’re added to the queue as a finished post.Turning a draft into a finished postYou can review your drafts for a channel by going to the queue and opening the Drafts tab. Once you’re feeling good about a draft and it’s ready to be scheduled as a post, simply add it to the queue. This will “confirm” the draft as a finished post, and it will be published at your chosen time.Turning a draft into a finished postCollaborating on drafts as a teamIf you have a Team or Agency plan, you can set up permissions for your team members so that they can submit drafts for approval before they’re published. Account owners and team members with full posting access can edit all drafts, delete all drafts, and move all drafts to the queue. Team members with restricted access are can edit their own drafts, delete their own drafts, and request approval for their own drafts.Drafts are freeWhile collaboration workflows are available for Team and Agency customers, if you’re a “team-of-one” and use our Free or Essentials plan, you’ll still be able to save, edit, and schedule drafts.Drafts are freeMore to comeContent creation is THE hardest part of a winning social media strategy, and drafting content is just one small step in that process. Helping you create quality content is going to be a big focus for us this year, so stay tuned for more features and updates.Do you have any questions or thoughts about the new draft experience? Tag us in a tweet – we’d love to hear from you.Happy drafting! ✏️

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If you ask marketers about their 2020 content plans, most will tell you they had to pivot because of the pandemic. In 2021, many said the same thing, as the world adjusted to this new normal.

We surveyed over 600 media planners this year and 99% of marketers who have ever pivoted their content plan did so in 2021, with 39% of them pivoting three times that year.
So how are they budgeting in 2022? Let’s find out.
How much are marketers spending on content marketing?
According to HubSpot Blog Research, 39% of marketers surveyed say they allocate 31-50% of their total marketing budget to content marketing.
This tells us that brands are leveraging content marketing above many other marketing strategies, as they put at least a third of their funding in it.

Wondering exactly how much? Most marketers surveyed (26%) said their quarterly content marketing budget ranged between $40K to $80K.
The second-highest figure was $100K-200K, reported by 16% of marketers surveyed, then $201K to $300K by 14% of respondents.
The specific amount tells us less about how much importance brands place on content marketing and more about the cost of this strategy.
It would be easy to think that all you need to do is write a few blog posts and that’s it. The truth is there’s so much that goes into content marketing, from copywriting and designing to research and media buying.
If you don’t invest time and money into it, you won’t get much back.
What Content Planners are Budgeting For in 2022
Before we can understand where marketers’ content budgets are going, it’s important to first review their goals.
When asked their top goals for their media planning strategies, 33% said it was to engage and grow new audiences.
The second highest answer was maximizing the return on investment (ROI) of their content.
The remaining goals are as follows:

Understanding which channels/platforms their audience spends the most time on (30%)
Analyzing the effectiveness of their content marketing strategy (29%)
Measuring KPIs across media channels (28%)
Understanding which channels or platforms are most effective for sharing their content (27%)

With this in mind, it makes sense that roughly 53% of content planners said conducting market research was their number one media planning investment in 2022 – either to find the most effective channel to reach their target audience or understand the demographics of their target audience.
Because so many marketers want to expand their audience base, conducting market research is the most fitting strategy. How can you market to an audience if you don’t know them?
Running an audit of their content to inform their media planning strategy is another popular investment for this year, revealed in our HubSpot Blog Research. One of the biggest challenges marketers face is understanding the impact of their content marketing efforts.
An audit allows a marketer to review their content, analyze performance, and determine high and low performers.

Which media channels are content marketing focusing on?
With so many channels and channels to consider, marketers say the biggest challenge of media planning is determining the most effective media mix.
Based on HubSpot Blog Research, we know that 84% of media planners leverage a mix of organic and paid media.
In the past year, many marketers have also dipped their toes in new social media platforms and features when pivoting their strategy – two in three media planners specifically.
Instagram Shops and Facebook Shops were the top platforms they tried. With Meta adding so many advanced shopping features to these popular social media platforms, it’s no wonder marketers want to leverage them and increase their revenue.
When asked “Which media channels do you plan to invest the most in this year? ” 14% said paid social media content, which marketers surveyed say, offers the highest ROI and the best engagement of any channel.

The second biggest investment in terms of media channels is organic social content, which is used by 43% of media planners. In addition, 9% plan to invest in it more than any other channel in 2022.
Email marketing came out on top as the most leveraged media channel, used by one in two media planners, and offers the third-highest ROI. Its use is also forecasted to grow this year, with 22% of content planners planning to use it for the first time this year.
In the past two years, we’ve faced so much unpredictability, which has kept marketers on their toes, to say the least. This year, it seems content planners are cautiously optimistic and equipped with strategies that will help them grow their audience.